“Too ideacentric.”

His electricity was shut off for non-payment on the hottest night of the year. The beer and vodka would stay cold for a few more hours. He held a bottle against his forehead and gave thanks for this small miracle.

Hurtling toward the last curve, picking up speed and terrified.

People tended to refer to him in compound nouns:
Fuckup
Dumbass
Shithead

Such sky, such earth, such trees, such absent leaves (which will return), such peace (that won’t), all this past and future splendor I leave you.

The word practice—cultivating a veneer of respectability while retaining the frisson of artistic endeavor.

Self-loathing had almost cured him of hubris.

Who’s the asshole, somebody asked, and when he repeated the question I realized he was referring to me.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget her bewildered expression as they drove her away.

Strolling my country estate at dawn, assessing last night’s damage. In the driveway, the burnt out husk of my beloved white 1972 Dodge Polara, crushed as if dropped nose first from a crane; in the fountain, two white swans, dead from apparent malnutrition; on my hands, two blood-caked bandages. Opposable thumbs: the last thing separating man from animal.

As a society, they exhibited a mania for naming, labeling and classification that subsumed the actuality of the thing itself.